The Fallen
by Maeve Riannon
Summary: Drabbles and scenes cut from the debris of a discarded fic on the last Queen of Númenor. Concept loosely based on HoME XII More information inside.
1. Introduction

**Introduction: **Welcome, readers, to the debris of a fallen fic! Originally, this was part of a small arc of unusual visions on the last Queen of Númenor, which I had never seen in fanfiction before and which I thought were somehow due. This one was based on the version given in the History of the Akallabêth of _HoME XII: The Peoples of Middle-Earth,_ where Tar-Míriel/ Ar-Zimraphel turned to Ar-Pharazôn willingly. As I was writing it, however, I realised that to follow that version meant to show such a different view of events that people could be confused or at least weirded out if they didn´t have an explanation. And then those explanations began to pop inside my head, and they became a legion of plotbunnies biting my fingers and my ears, dragging me off this fic and into a new, much larger one where they could all find a home of their own. (Estimated date of publication: February 2007)

So what I did with the fic I had already written was to use parts for scenes and drabbles. Those drabbles and scenes are those that I have published here, in the idea that that they might make sense (at least some of them), and they have no connection whatsoever with my still-unpublished Númenor Fic With Caps... the heroine´s character, for example, is substantially different.


	2. First Encounter

_**First Encounter**_

"What´s your name?" he asked. The brief moment of ease dissolved in a rush, and she went a bit rigid.

"Míriel." she muttered in a low voice.

"What? I didn´t hear you."

"Míriel!" she repeated, busying herself with the repairs of the muddy stronghold. She did not see her cousin´s face, but she heard his snort behind her back well enough.

"That´s a stupid name. Sounds like a cat meowing."

"It does _not._" she replied, indignantly.

The worst of all, of course, was that it _did_, and there was no one in the whole of Núménor who hated that name more than Míriel herself. Because of it, nobody talked to her when she was brought to the King´s palace, and she had to hide in her grandmother´s gardens to play. Because of it, her grandfather used long periphrases to address her, and didn´t love her. Because of it, too, he stared coldly at her father, and didn´t allow him to lay a foot on the palace except on festivities.

As soon as she grew old enough to realise some of those things and overhear the rest, Míriel had begged her father to change her name. He had frowned, and told her that such a thing was not possible, and that it was a beautiful name.

Since that day, she had sincerely tried to be proud of it, too. Honestly. She had asked everything that could be known about it, and memorised it carefully to throw it at the face of the next person who would hear it with contempt. But those people scared her too much, so in the end she had never said a word.

"It means Jewel Woman. It was the name of a very beautiful and powerful queen who was famous for her weaving. She had black hair and a crown of stars."

"Whatever." The boy shrugged, apparently not at all interested in the story. "And Jewel Woman would be Zimraphel."

Míriel frowned, nonplussed.

"In which language?" she snorted" Dwarvish? Orcish?"

"Númenoréan."

"That´s ridiculous! Zim-whatever- is _not_ Númenoréan, you dunderhead!"

"You are the dunderhead here! Don´t you know anything at all about Adunaic?"

"Adunaic?" She furrowed her brow warily. She had heard the name before... but where?

"It´s the oldest speech _ever_, what our ancestors used when they first came to Núménor!" he explained. "All kings use Adunaic in their names and in state ceremonies and in their official papers. My name is Adunaic, too, because I´m a scion of kings."

Míriel listened to his explanation, speechless. For a while, she wondered whether to believe it or not. No one had told her those things before, and she was _also_ a scion of kings.

Even as she was pondering this, a feeling of envy began to break through, and she bit her lip. It was obvious to her that he felt proud of his own name, really proud and not just pretending to. It felt unfair to her, somehow.

"What... what was the name again?" she interrupted him, almost in spite of herself. He stopped and looked at her for a moment, then flashed his smug grin from before.

"Zimraphel. I´ll call you that, it sounds much better."

"It doesn´t." she answered faintly, but there was no spirit in her voice, and she had learned by now that the boy would do what he wanted in spite of what she would say. Before she realised what she was doing, she found herself pondering its drawling, imposing texture in her mouth. 

"Zimraphel..."

Her voice came out so hopeful, so covetous that she blushed to the root of her hairs. He laughed.

"Where did you get that caterpillar, Zimraphel?"

_Could they... would they, maybe, love her now?_

"In the rose bushes." she said, and smiled a little, tentatively.


	3. Betrothal I

_**Betrothal - I**_

"But... we are cousins! Cousins do not marry in Númenor! It´s forbidden by a law that was passed a very long time ago, have you never heard of..."

"And who passed that law?" 

Interrupted in her tirade, Zimraphel stammered dazedly.

"E-Elros, of course. With all the rest."

"Well, then! He was loved and respected, and that was why people revered his laws! If someone else was also loved and respected, wouldn´t he be heard as well if he decided to pass a new one?

"But... but he was _Elros!_"

"So? "He shook his head dismissively, but his eyes were glowing with a fierce light. "I will be greater than him one day."

Zimraphel looked at him, incredulous. For a split second she saw blood and a great, dark wave crashing over their heads, and something within her shivered in terror.

Something within her shook with blind, fiery pride.


	4. Betrothal II

_**Betrothal -II**_

Zimraphel tried to pry away from him, to welcome the cool breeze that would allow her to think rationally about this. But thinking rationally also had its dangers. It brought back to her mind those ugly whispers, that accused her of hypocrisy and ingratitude. It forced her to follow a logical and inexorable chain of thoughts that she could not disguise beneath fair words or dissipate in purposeful vagueness.

When she gave her love to Pharazôn, she had chosen to follow her heart, and yet at the same time she had broken the law, and betrayed her father. She could convince herself that the law was unfair and meant to be broken, as they had both been meant to meet and fall in love with each other and no one else in Arda. She could muster a thousand reasons for resenting his father, who perservered alone in a mistaken path that threatened to bring ruin upon Númenor and division upon his family. And still, all those reasons and pretexts crumbled to dust upon a single wall, the wall of _cowardice_ and falsehood, as she showed to all Númenor the smiling face of an innocent and to his father the love of a daughter.

Whenever she thought rationally, she always discovered that she did not like herself. And so she had learned to smother her innermost thoughts, as well as she had once become skilled in ignoring people and faces that she did not like as as child.

_Love. _She let her eyes trail fondly, hungrily over the handsome, daring features of Pharazôn, and gave him a tremulous smile. Love was beautiful and pure, and it had the power of dignifying the basest passions and motives.

She was in love.

"When you return." she promised, sealing her pledge with a kiss.


	5. The Father

_**The Father**_

At night, the corridors were shrouded in darkness, and a thickly woven cloak of silence. Zimraphel´s vivid imagination, as a child, had filled this void with rumours of footsteps, whispers and shadows that terrified her whenever she dared to leave the safety of her own chambers. As she had grown older, however, and listened intently at each corner for some noise, afraid of discovery, silence had become a blessing and a protection. Childhood terrors had subsided, while other fears that she had previously ignored had begun to take their place.

All those things flashed through her mind as she heard the footsteps approaching, with the steady and barely perceptible quality of her old nightmares. Caught between two worlds, that of the frightened girl and of the guilty woman, her legs froze in place, and she waited.

"Míriel."

Pale moonrays that stole through the window revealed a face, with features that had been once proud and now had grown old before their time.

The face exhibited a carefully guarded expression.

"You go to see him."

It had not been a question. Zimraphel felt a crushing knot in her throat, and her own face blanched. All speeches, arguments and excuses that she had amused herself crafting in unguarded moments, -fancying that she would speak them in a firm voice if the time came-, left her mind in a rush, leaving only the confusion of shame.

"Father.." She swallowed frantically, trying to look past his closed features. "I..."

His eyes pierced her, and she fell silent. As the weight of the glance of Tar-Palantír fell over her, she felt explored in the darkest recesses of her mind, those that she did not even dare to unravel herself. Her secrets were weighted, and her shame pondered until she was not able to keep steady and looked away.

He sighed, a soft yet haunting sound.

"I will not go." she blabbered, forsaking reason and logic to fill the terrible silence with the sound of her words. "I will go back to my rooms. I will not see him", _as if she hadn´t been betrothed for years behind his back. _

He shook his head, and the mask fell from his features at last, revealing a weariness, and a deep, unfathomable sadness that made Zimraphel reel back as if she had been struck. Once again, she tried to open her mouth, but no words came from it this time.

"Go to him." he muttered, then snorted painfully at her expression of disbelief. "What, you are surprised? If I do not allow you, you will only love him more, and hate me. Like my people. I have seen many things in your eyes tonight, child. Alas for Númenor!"

Before she could answer he turned her back to her, and disappeared into the shadows. Zimraphel stared at the empty corridor for a long while of dazed silence. Finally, she walked back to her room in growing anguish, and lay in her bed without even taking her clothes away.

The following day, the King Tar-Palantír stayed in his chambers, afflicted by a mysterious illness that the wise of Númenor, lately perplexed by so many cases of fever and madness, could not recognise or name. A week later, he died, and Zimraphel, who had not set a foot outside the palace in all that time, received a sceptre where her unleashed fancy persisted in spotting faint traces of blood.

_What had he seen that night?_


	6. The Wedding

_**The Wedding**_

Some of her father´s friends called her a coward. Some refused to believe that it had been her decision, and many cursed Pharazôn and spread dark stories of conspiracy and rape. And yet, faced with her own words and her own pledge, there was nothing that they could do.

He took the sceptre with a calm, arrogant smile, as if it had belonged to him all along. After many dark nights of despair, she felt hope dawning anew, and convinced herself that everything was at last as it should be.

"The Powers, whose love Tar-Palantír sought for all his life, forsook him and finally abandoned him to a fate of darkness. I will now return to the ways of our fathers, and the might and splendour of Númenor will be subservient to none." It had been his first speech, filling her heart with a new ardour. The land would thrive again, free from the lingering shadow of strife and forgotten ceremonials full of raspy and metallic dead words. Free from the shadow of Tar-Palantír.

Sometimes, she still had dreams where her hands were red with the blood of his father. When she awoke, she blamed the Valar.

_Coward. Traitor. Victim. Prisoner_. The day of their wedding, as she appeared in front of them in a magnificent attire of silks, rubies and silver thread, she could read the different words in the eyes that were fixed on hers, as if, for the space of a fleeting moment, the dead King´s haunting gift had pierced the walls of her human understanding.

Shivering, she sought his hand, and its heat comforted her until she was able to curve her lips into a smile. She had never felt so highly prized, and of such little worth.


	7. The Last Chance

_**The Last Chance**_

The threshold smelled of smoke, and the footsteps of her followers grew hesitant behind her back. Chants, monotonous and grave, filled the airs in an ominous choir, but she bit her lips and did not stop.

"Wait for me here." she said. She heard some breaths of relief.

The temple was huge, though the perspective was less impressive and more accurate from the heights of that balcony. If she extended a hand, she felt that she could almost touch the silver engravings of the domes above her head, or reach to the crowd assembled downstairs around the structure of the dark altar.

She felt dizzy.

"The Queen!" someone whispered. Zimraphel passed by the courtiers, all of them men, who stood next to Ar-Pharazôn´s throne, and sat on a corner in silence. For a moment, their glances crossed in mid-air, and she could see his frown.

Ignoring the whispers, she forced herself to focus her attention on what was happening below. She saw the iron statue of Melkor, great and terrible, and the fire at its feet. She even forced herself to stare impassively as a small and ugly creature from Middle-Earth struggled before he was thrown to the flames, aware that the horrible rictus of his face would give her nightmares for many nights.

Not long afterwards, she felt a presence behind her back. Knowing who it was, she sat up with dignity, and arranged her embroidered mantle over her shoulders.

"I will not go." she said. The Maia turned away and left without a comment.

Nauseated by the smell of smoke and charred flesh, and by the endless repetition of the chants, Zimraphel wondered if he would come to her. For days, they had avoided each other, and the only place where she had thought that they could put an end to it was this.

Another creature was dragged accross the steps of the altar. This one was female, and she stared fiercely at the people around, as if wishing to bite their throats. Zimraphel tried to keep her eyes open as she was given to the fire.

"What are you doing here?" an angry voice addressed her. Her heart jumped inside her chest.

"Assisting to the ceremony." she replied, almost without skipping a beat. Her voice came out even, if a bit too loud.

King Ar-Pharazôn sat next to her, his movements betraying his irritation. He was attired in all his golden finery, as always since the anguish of age had fallen over him like a curse. Strands of white hair were hidden under a crown of rubies, and the first wrinkles on his skin were overshadowed by robes of a surpassing magnificence. And under all this, Zimraphel thought bitterly, there was also something that he could not hide so easily; the fear of death that consumed his heart and tainted his thoughts with a shadow of folly.

"You know that you shouldn´t be looking at this. It harms your frail disposition, and the child..."

_The child! _Zimraphel felt tempted to laugh like a madwoman. She had two children already, one a puddle of blood between her trembling legs, the other a corpse that felt frozen in her arms. How could he still hold any hopes?

This thought made her shiver, and she sobered up with a mournful look at the gilded railing. He did not really hold any hopes. She knew now.

"If you think that this will harm my disposition, what do you think that will happen when your fleet attacks the Undying Lands?" she replied, touching her already swollen belly with her hand. "When grief and fear for your fate take my heart in their cold grip, won´t I be barren like winter?"

He stared at her with an unusual intensity, and a creased forehead. She held his glance.

"You are not being rational."

"You go to your death."

"I go to my victory! And I will claim eternal life for us and our child!"

Though the sound of the chants smothered their voices, some of the people who were closest to them turned dissimulated looks in their direction. Zimraphel immediately turned away, horrified at the prospect of letting them see her tears.

"Please, stay with me. I promise I will bear this child! He will not die... not this time."

Pharazôn shook his head.

"Oh, yes, he will. If not in his birth, then in his old age, but he will die. As will you. As will I, and everyone in Númenor, losing our minds, contracting in spasms and bearing pain and anguish. And after our deaths, we will wander, lost in the darkness from where there´s no return."

It had been like this for years already, she thought in anguish, biting her lip. The great and fearless king had not known how to fight against the shadow that was falling over his people, and he had despaired. The accursed Maia had only needed to show him how to wave his sword against terrors unseen, and how to drive it into their hearts. War was something that he could understand, and therefore it could not frighten him.

For her, however, it was as much of a ghost as the invisible, untouchable spirit of disease. And the Queen of Númenor could fight neither.

"Stay with me." she repeated, but her voice died in a whisper. _Useless._

Still, at least some of her despair managed to leak through, because his features softened. He held her cold hand in a comforting grip.

"I will conquer, Zimraphel." he said, and for a moment she tried hard to surrender to the fiery enthusiasm that he had been able to rouse in her soul since she had been a child. The spirit of pride, of strength and rebellion that had captured her heart had been the spark she had once clung to in order to kindle a fire that she had not posessed. It still shone in his eyes as he set them on her, but Zimraphel knew true loss now.

_The child would never be born._

"Zimraphel!"

Trembling in spite of the fire and the suffocation, the Queen of Númenor stood up from her seat, and sought the door with quick and frenzied steps.


	8. Fairer than Silver

_**Fairer Than Silver**_

_It swept her in her futile run, as easily as if she had been nothing but a dry leaf or a crushed weed on a riverbank. In quiet horror, she felt the might of the pull, and she saw herself grow higher and higher, even higher than the peak of the Meneltarma where Eru himself had established his seat. Under her feet lay the debris of so many proud palaces, and corpses, and people struggling with the whirls of the current._

_The Queen closed her eyes. For a moment, there was nothing but silence, and a cold mass of liquid cushioning her body in an illusion of security. She leaned back trembling, invoking the dangerous fancy, and refused to look into the eyes of her death._

_As the roar of raging water exploded in her ears, the last thing she could see was Ar-Pharazôn´s silhouette disappearing in the distance, while she stood on the docks without saying a word._


End file.
